Chapter 10: The Weeping Rose
At One O'clock in the afternoon, Buttercup had been awake a good half an hour ago. She had changed out of her damaged clothing into one of the other shirts she had brought, which was green with a black skull print on the back of it. It was somewhat old she hadn't worn it since she got it a few months ago on her birthday from the professor. "Right… now to find Butch," she muttered, having seen no sign of him since she woke up, wondering if he was okay. She headed out of the room and back into the practically empty mansion. She wandered the halls and came across the wide open door to Mr Francis's room, and she could hear light laughter coming from him that was muffled by his gas mask.
"Hey. Have you seen Butch?" Buttercup questioned while entering the room. Mr Francis wheeled himself around, the gray rose still resting in the glass bottle of water, but Buttercup had noticed a more blooming look on that rose. "Mr JoJo was here earlier… he went to complete the last challenge while it is still bright…" he answered. The young girl approached, seeing the slightly grown gray rose with few bright red seeds fallen out of it. "The last challenge? What is it?" Buttercup replied, curious behind what the red seed was as well. "I sent him to collect these," The old man answered, fixing his gas mask before picking up the red seed with a smile, his gloved hand holding it while the eyes of the gas mask stared at it. "Well while he's at it… I want you to explain to us what your deal is. And what this whole forests deal is on top of that," the puff demanded with her crossed arms, glaring at him. "With pleasure," Francis agreed to explain.
Butch walked through the forest, the atmosphere and environment a lot happier in the daytime. He was just glad that he wasn't going to see any monsters and was hoping to get these red seeds with ease. He had decided to walk, mainly to save energy from flying, but he was surprised by how big the forest was. He suddenly noticed something bright and red lying on the ground, examining a seed. He didn't touch it, but he noticed multiple red seeds lining up together like a pathway. He just began to follow them. They were lighting his path along until he came upon a nearly intact home that seemed to have been newly constructed, judging by some building materials lying around.
Butch kept following the trail of red seeds that led behind the home and to a small greenhouse. He raised an eyebrow while entering the greenhouse. Inside were gray roses everywhere, and the floor littered with bright red seeds. "…Jackpot!" he laughed in glee before crouching and beginning to pick up the red seeds and line his pockets with them. No matter how long it took, Butch thought it was all worth it.
"Where to begin? …would you prefer to hear how the monsters are born, the forest's origin or my family's game behind it?" Mr Francis asked his angered guest, adjusting his voice speakers to make it the clearest as they can handle it, while typing away on his laptop. "Let's start with… I dunno… how had this forest full of monsters existed for so long and how come anyone hasn't been found out yet?" Buttercup sarcastically asked. "You're asking for the answer to all three at once," Francis claimed before beginning to type. "We'll start with the forest's birth… it was a hundred years ago…" he started. Buttercup groaned before taking a seat in a nearby chair. There was going to be a few annoying stories that only old people seemed to have the patience to listen to.
"These roses… they are special for giving life to the trees… however we had only one rose that we acquired a hundred years ago… it was given to us by a weird entity… I believe his name was HIM," Mr Francis began while continuing to type with his maximum speed on the laptop to make his speakers talk and explain his stories. Buttercup was well familiar with HIM, the face of horrors beyond horrors that had been killed a long time ago. "But then… the flower produced this…" he said, showing the bright red seed in his gloved hand. Buttercup tried to grab it, but he jerked it away.
"When planted, they took a long time to grow… almost five years… and after a while we had a grand garden of those roses… they are a rare type now… the house my uncle grew them in was lost in the forest. The trees were born from the seeds as well. It was hard to get a rose to bloom from it… you usually got a tree… eventually we noticed the other residents of the forest vanishing before our eyes…" Francis continued before throwing the red seed into a nearby trash bin. "And the monsters?" Buttercup wanted him to continue, knowing he was somewhat slow, even with him typing blazingly. "Yes… the beasts were all humans at one point… but the red seeds… when held with uncovered hands, you feel compelled to eat them… you want to just consume a good amount, and when you do, the seeds begin to grow in your belly and planting themselves… if you do not get them out within twenty four hours, then you shall succumb to becoming a monster… if not having your mind taken over beforehand…" Francis finished his explanation behind the red seeds and how the forest and the monsters came to be.
"…And why did you wait until now to tell us? Why don't you have the military come deal with them or burn the forest to the ground?" Buttercup questioned with her arms crossed, still listening. The last time she had listened to such a long story was when the professor's father was in town. "The forest would catch a blaze… it would spread easy throughout the entire forest… these are not humans anymore… they are animals. …I do not want to ruin the prospects of future research that these beasts could bring to society," Mr Francis answered, looking back to the rose that dropped another seed from its petal, "The roses… they cry for the loss of the beasts that are killed in the contest," he said stroking its petals before reaching the stem of the flower and snapping it. In an instant, the petals wilted away.
Butch was still in the greenhouse, filling his pockets with the seeds. He picked one up and looked at it in his hand. They seemed brighter, the closer he looked. A sudden force was ringing in the back of his mind to just munch at it. "…I wonder if they taste like sunflower seeds," Butch wondered aloud, his stomach growling for breakfast. He took his chances and popped the seed into his mouth. He swallowed, and with a raised eyebrow, he tasted nothing, but it had no bad flavor for him to complain about. "Maybe just another…" he mumbled, picking up a hand full of the red seeds from the greenhouse floor and pouring them into his mouth, just swallowing them whole. Right after, he felt strange. His eyes were hurting, and soon his entire body except for his stomach was aching. His pupils were tinting into blood red. He groaned loudly, lying on the ground and letting out a scream of agony, before he was rendered unconscious.
End of Chapter 10